For what we're seeing onstage at the Marsh, where "Civil Sex" opened Friday, is Freeman seated cross-legged on a cushion, sipping designer water and depicting Thomas, A.D. Smith-style, right down to each academic inflection and unconscious mannerism. Meanwhile, Freeman himself, the interviewer who makes the bogus assurances, is being played with similar precision by Duane Boutte.

Still, Freeman isn't attempting to do one of Smith's famed multi-character, one-woman shows. Freeman uses three actors. He relies more heavily on archival material and throws in the occasional dramatized scene. Elderly subjects revert to their youth in mid-interview, reliving the moments they're describing. Flashes of camp humor and burlesque choreography recall his work with Pomo Afro Homos.

But echoes of Smith are not accidental. Just as she calls her work "A Search for the American Character," Freeman's working title for "Civil Sex" was "Looking for Bayard." His search, like hers, has taken him beyond his immediate subject - the life of gay civil rights leader Bayard Rustin - into larger questions of what it means to be black, gay and militant in America.

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Originally commissioned by New Langton Arts and scheduled to be premiered by Thick Description (now absorbed in building its own theater), "Sex" opened in September at the Woolly Mammoth Theatre in Washington, D.C. Revised by Freeman - both as playwright and director - it's being co-presented here by a consortium of Thick Description, Pomo Afro Homos and New Langton Arts in association with the Marsh.

There's no question that it's an impressive piece. It runs on a bit too long, at two hours and 20 minutes, and it loses its way at times. But Freeman's "Sex" is more often sharp, provocative, funny and thoroughly engrossing. More than that, it's a thoughtful, engaging exploration of the American character as refracted through the life of one remarkable man.

The play opens, impudently enough, with Strom Thurmond as depicted - doggedly acerbic and self-important - by Boutte, an African American actor. The year is 1963. Thurmond is doing his retrograde best to derail the upcoming March on Washington for Jobs & Freedom by attacking its principal organizer, Rustin, as a communist and "sexual pervert."

It ends, on a fully earned note of triumph, with what may have been Rustin's proudest moment. Boutte's Rustin opens the March on Washington rally (most famous now for Martin Luther King Jr.'s impassioned speech) by reading a list of the organizers' demands, as A. Philip Randolph (an impressively dignified Freeman) issues a call for

"total freedom."

In between, Freeman, Boutte and Michael Stebbins portray a host of characters who shed light on Rustin, his times and ours. Working against a shiny metal backdrop - each scene defined by a few pieces of furniture (set by Emiko Oye), Jose Maria Francos' shifting lights and the well-chosen costumes of Eugene Rodriguez and Jim Byers - the trio transform themselves into everyone from Thurmond to pacifist leaders A.J. Muste and Dave McReynolds.

In one scintillating scene, Boutte's intently focused Rustin argues integration with Freeman's razor-sharp Malcolm X (from a 1961 WBAI radio debate). In another, that goes on a bit too long, Boutte charmingly delivers a Rustin primer on prejudice. Freeman is particularly affecting as retired accompanist Jonathan Brice, gently, penetratingly recalling his work with Rustin and Paul Robeson on a "John Henry" musical and life as a gay African American in the 1940s.

Stebbins is a delight as Davis Platt, Rustin's longtime white lover, all awkward infatuation as he and Boutte recreate their initial trysts - and deeply affecting as he recalls witnessing Malcolm X's assassination. There are passages that run on too long or wander off track - such as an extended interview with an HIV educator (Freeman), or the biographer (Stebbins) whose skeptical claims about Rustin are left hanging.

But Freeman quickly reasserts his hold on his material with such coups as the deftly choreographed parking lot tryst that led to Rustin's infamous "morals charge" bust, or a sharply written interview between himself and Boutte as his elusive subject. At its best, which is most of the time, "Civil Sex" is an enlightening treat.

Theater Review

"Civil Sex'

* WRITER, DIRECTOR Brian Freeman

* CAST Freeman, Duane Boutte, Michael Stebbins

* THEATER The Marsh, through Nov. 30 (415-826-5730)&lt;

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